Gods and Demigods read Lightning Thief
by MadEyeLoony
Summary: The demigods go to Olympus to read the books, might be a little OOC but I'll try to stick to as normal as possible - Enjoy! Set just after the batte at the Roman camp in Son of Neptune.
1. Chapter 1

**I do not own Percy Jackson or any of the characters, that goes to the awesome Rick Riordan**

Everyone was happily eating and chatting, laughing with their friends. The Hunters and Nico di Angelo were visiting Camp Half Blood. A letter appeared in the sky with a slight _pop _making everyone snap their heads towards the noise. The paper floated down and landed in front of Chiron. He scanned it quickly and he visibly stiffened. He glanced up at the demigods to see them all staring at him, looked back down, cleared his throat and began to read:

Dear Camp Half Blood,

Hey guys! Hermes here! So, in another one of our 'productive' Olympian meetings, we decided that we should get to know you guys a bit better and then suddenly a box of books arrived (no idea who delivered them – I didn't, I swear! Don't listen to Zeus!). Anyway, the books are about Percy Jackson – that awesome guy who's gone missing, even I miss him and I'm a freaking God! Athena did her whole wisdom thing and deducted that the books tell of Percy's half blood adventures (such a hard deduction to make, right? Pfft, I should have been the wisdom goddess, SORRY! I DIDN'T MEAN IT ATHENA, I LOVE YOU REALLY! I DIDN'T MEAN THAT EITHER! ARRRGGGGHHH!...)

Chiron inspected the paper more closely after this and saw a golden stain, he smiled instantly at the Gods' antics.

Ok, sorry about that, yeah, so… the following people have to come to Olympus ASAP:

Annabeth Chase, Daughter of Athena & Architect of Olympus

Thalia Grace, Daughter of Zeus & Lieutenant of Artemis

Nico di Angelo, Son of Hades

Clarisse La Rue, Daughter of Ares & Drakon Slayer

Connor Stoll, Son of Hermes

Travis Stoll, Son of Hermes

Katie Gardner, Daughter of Demeter

Cameron Granger, Son of Apollo

Leo Valdez, Son of Hephastus

Piper Maclean, Daughter of Aphrodite

Rachel Dare, Oracle of Delphi

Jason Grace, Son of Zeus (Jupiter)

Poseidon also requested I invited Percy Jackson, Son of Poseidon & Saviour of Olympus (and other things; that list is ENDLESS), but –as you all know- Percy's missing, I even mentioned it earlier. Well, I think that's everything, see you guys soon. Remember to pack well, Connor and Travis can help you if you can't do it yourself, haha!

Hermes (who can't be bothered writing out his official title)

Everyone stared around at everyone whose names had been read out.

'Ok, the campers who have been listed, please go pack and be ready to leave for Olympus in 15 minutes.'

The 'chosen ones' all shuffled off to pack while the others stared at their retreating backs.

**A/N: Hey, sorry about these first few chapters, they're pretty necessary but I want to get into the books as soon as possible so I'm trying to upload as fast as I can ^_^ R&R! x**


	2. Chapter 2

**I do not own Percy Jackson or any characters, they belong to Rick Riordan.**

The drive into New York was quiet; everyone was wondering what would happen on Olympus, all they knew was that they were going to read books about Percy, which was painful for Annabeth but made Leo, Jason and Piper more apprehensive. They would finally be able to hear the full stories of Poseidon's son that everyone always talked about.

The group all walked into the throne room and looked up at the gods, most in awe but some who had seen them all before, weren't that bothered.

'Hey guys!' Apollo beamed. He turned to Athena. 'They're here; let's read!'

Athena looked at Zeus and he sighed like he had the hardest life, waved his hand in their general direction and an assortment of tables and chairs appeared behind them. Athena lifted up the first book from the pile on the arm of her throne and opened it to the first chapter as the demigods got settled. Athena opened her mouth to read when a bright white light appeared in the middle of the room and two people appeared.

'IDENTIFY YOURSELVES!' Zeus roared.

'Frank Zhang, Son of Ares. And this is Hazel Levensque, Daughter of Pluto.' Frank stammered. The mentioned Gods flickered into their Roman form briefly. 'We were told to come here to read a book by this random note but we didn't know how as it said urgently and then this light appeared and we got sucked it.'

'Hmm, well sit down then.'

'Thank you, but sir,' Hazel spoke up. 'Is Percy not here?'

'Percy? How do you know him?' Annabeth was standing up and staring at Hazel.

'He's our friend at Camp Jupiter. He defeated Polybotes only last night – we think he's been resting all day.'

Everyone in the room was in slight shock. He defeated Polybotes?! Woah.

Just then a bright green light appeared in the middle of the floor and got brighter and brighter until it was impossible to look. When everyone turned back…

**A/N: Nearly to the books, REALLY short chapter next, then we be reading! Argh, me harties!**


	3. Chapter 3

**I do not own Percy Jackson or any characters, they belong to Rick Riordan.**

Just then a bright green light appeared in the middle of the floor and got brighter and brighter until it was impossible to look. When everyone turned back there he was. Percy Jackson, Son of Poseidon. He had his arm over his eyes, covering them from the light and he looked tousled like he'd either just been fighting or sleeping. Knowing Percy, it was probably both of those somehow. He turned to look at Zeus, frowned and snapped 'What?'

'Sorry?' Zeus recovered his shock to reply to him.

'What do you want? I'm tired.'

'Well too bad. We have to read these books.' Athena put in.

Percy looked suspiciously around the room and noticed some Olympians glancing behind him. He turned and his mouth fell open in surprise when he saw the group of demigods. Annabeth was literally frozen in shock, when he saw her Percy grinned, glanced behind him at the Gods, then walked over to where the demigods where and sat next to Annabeth who sat down, turned her head and just stared at him. Percy turned to look at Athena expectantly and everybody followed suit.

She cleared her throat and began to read.

**A/N: Books! Let's go = click that next button! :D**


	4. I Accidently Vaporize My Maths Teacher

**I do not own Percy Jackson or any characters, they belong to Rick Riordan.**

'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief'

Lightning thief? Zeus wondered to himself.

'**I accidently vaporize my maths teacher'**

Most of the room burst into laughter and turned to look at Percy.

'How does that even happen?' Nico gasped between laughs.

Percy just shrugged in response.

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

The demigods all glanced at each other and smiled almost mischievously.

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now.**

'We're all demigods, so does that mean we have to close in now?' Connor asked.

'No, because we're Gods and we say you have to sit there and read with us.' Artemis stated.

**Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

Some of the demigods snorted.

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on.**

Travis gasped, 'Percy! You're encouraging people to read! The world must be ending.' He sounded so serious some of the Olympians looked freaked out.

Percy laughed. 'Must be, Travis. Why would I tell people to _read_?' He shivered.

**I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. But if you recognize yourself in these pages – if you feel something stirring inside – stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before **_**they **_**sense it too, and they'll come for you too. Don't say I didn't warn you. **

Nico looked at Percy, slightly frightened. 'Why did you make it sound so scary?'

'It is scary.' Percy replied simply.

'Especially for you.' Annabeth said, having finally recovering from her shock and grabbing Percy's hand sometime during Athena's reading.

The demigods nodded in agreement while Leo, Piper, Jason and Cameron looked at Percy calculatingly.

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

'Hey Percy' Leo said.

'Hey, uhm, sorry, but who are you?' he asked.

'I'm Leo, that's Piper, that's Jason and that's Cameron.' Leo said, pointing to them all as he said their names. 'I think you know everyone else. We all came while you were gone.'

'Yeah, I know the rest.' He grinned then sighed through his nose. 'How much did I miss?'

'You mean in the 8 MONTHS YOU WERE GONE?!' Annabeth started to say then it turned into a shout.

'Yeah.' Percy just gave her a big smile and her anger melted. She had missed him so much. And there was plently of time for yelling later, she thought evily.

**I'm twelve years old.**

'You're sixteen.' Poseidon said.

'Yeah, but this is set when I'm twelve.' Percy told him.

'Ah, okay.' Poseidon grinned, it was good to finally see his son again and the fact that he was alive was even better.

**Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy,**

Percy wrinkled his nose at the mention of that place.

**a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York. Am I a troubled kid?**

'Yes.' The demigods who knew Percy chorused. Percy just laughed.

**Yeah. You could say that. I could start at any point in my short, miserable life**

'Short?!' Poseidon panicked.

'Still here, still alive.' Percy reassured him.

**To prove it, but things started going bad last May when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan – twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus,**

Half of the people in the room were grinning evilly now.

**heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at Ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

'Is that a form of torture?' Poseidon looked horrified.

Percy smirked.

**I know – it sounds like torture**

Everyone laughed at the likeliness of the two.

**Most Yancy field trips were. But Mr Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip so I had hopes. Mr Brunner was this middle-ages guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.**

'Chiron.' Dionysus said, almost fondly.

**You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class.**

Travis and Connor grinned at the thought.

**He had this awesome collection of Roman armour and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

'Sleeping in class?! How can you do that? It's so interesting!' Athena looked slightly offended.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get into trouble.**

'No chance.' Annnabeth smirked at Percy.

**Boy, was I wrong.**

'Told you.' Annabeth gloated.

'Stop stealing my job! I'm the psychic!' Rachel joked.

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

The room burst into laughter as Percy crossed his arms and muttered about how unfair that was.

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.**

Everyone laughed again.

'It wasn't that bad.' Percy mused.

'That's cause you LOVE water.' Thalia laughed harder.

'Obviously.' Annabeth grinned.

**And the time before that…well you get he idea. This trip, I was determined to be good.**

The demigods who knew Percy all smirked and raised their eyebrows at him. He tried to look innocent but ended up smiling guiltily.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly red-headed kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend, Grover,**

Percy smiled at the mention of Grover, he'd missed him.

**in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

Aphrodite's face turned into one of horror, she looked like she'd just seen Medusa.

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria. **

Percy laughed at the memory while Dionysus grumbled 'Stupid satyrs.' Was that affection everyone could hear in his voice?

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. **

'How many times have you been on probation?' Thalia asked Percy

'Uhh…' He tried to count them but they were so frequent he forgot most of them.

'Ok' Thalia laughed. 'How many times have you had detention?'

'Lost count _years _ago.' Percy replied. Annabeth shook her head at him and smiled: Seaweed Brain.

**The headmaster had threatened me with death-**

'WHAT?!' Poseidon shrieked. Athena rolled her eyes and read on.

**by-in-school suspension**

'Oh.' Poseidon laughed at himself.

**is anything bad, embarrassing or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

'That's not fun!' Hermes looked appalled.

'**I'm going to kill her,' I mumbled.**

'DO IT!' Ares yelled.

**Grover tried to calm me down. 'It's okay. I like peanut butter.'**

Grover's friends smiled.

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch. 'That's it.' I started to get up,**

Ares cheered.

**but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

Ares joined in Dionysus' grumbling about stupid satyrs.

'**You're already on probation,' he reminded me. 'You know who'll get blamed if anything happens.'**

'It's _always_ me.' Percy mumbled.

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right there and then. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

'Do you sound cheerful on the outside but are actually really morbid on the inside? 'Cause your thoughts are really depressing.' Hazel said to Percy.

'Hmm, maybe. Well, I try to be optimistic but it never works, so I stick to pessimism and sarcasm.' Percy replied after thought.

Hazel grinned at him.

**Mr Brunner led the museum tour. He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery. It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

'Longer than that.' Piper said.

**He gathered us around a four-metre-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top,**

Percy and Annabeth glanced at each other at the mention of the sphinx.

**and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a **_**stele, **_**for a girl about our age. Her told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

'The one time you're actually going to listen to a teacher and you can't hear.' Annabeth sighed.

Percy smiled widely at her but the smile was wiped from his face when he remembered he hadn't even told Annabeth about the Fury attack. She was going to kill him. He gulped.

**Mrs Dodds was this little maths teacher from Gerogia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker.**

My kind of women! Ares thought eagerly.

**She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last maths teacher had a nervous breakdown. From her first day, Mrs Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn.**

The Olympians turned and laughed at Poseidon while Thalia said 'No, that's Nico.', making all the demigods laugh.

**She would point her crooked finger at me and say, 'Now, honey,' real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

'Not that bad.' Percy mumbled, making some look at him weirdly.

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of an old maths workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs Dodds was human. He looked at me real serious and said, 'You're absolutely right.'**

Why didn't I take that as the first hint? Percy thought to himself.

**Mr Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the **_**stele, **_** and I turned around and said, 'Will you **_**shut up?' **_**It came out louder than I meant it to. The whole group laughed. Mr Brunner stopped his story.**

'**Mr Jackson,' he said, 'did you have a comment?'**

'Busted!' Hermes snickered.

'I liked that band, I was really sad when they broke up.' Apollo said.

'Same!' Frank agreed.

**My face was totally red. I said, 'No, sir'**

**Mr Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the **_**stele. **_**'Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?'**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a rush of relief, because I actually recognized it. 'That's Kronos eating his kids, right?'**

All the Olympians who had been in Kronos' stomach grimaced at that memory.

'**Yes,' Mr Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. 'And he did this because…'**

'**Well…' I racked my brain to remember. 'Kronos was the king god, and- '**

'Sorry!' Percy said before a group of angry gods could yell at him.

'**God?' Mr Brunner asked.**

'**Titan' I corrected myself. 'And…he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. **

'How could you even get those mixed up?' Nico asked, looking confused.

'Titans are stupid.' Percy answered.

'You only say that cause they kept trying to kill you.' Thalia laughed.

'Pretty much.' Percy agreed.

**And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters- '**

'**Eeew!' said one of the girls behind me.**

The older female goddesses nodded in agreement.

'**-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans,' I continued, 'and the gods won.'**

'…that was actually quite a good, short summary. You could have used better words but it was well formulated.' Athena told Percy, looking surprised.

'Uh…thanks.' He said warily.

'I still don't like you, Sea Spawn.' She glared.

Percy nodded, happy some things were back to normal.

**Some snickers from the group.**

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, 'Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, "Please explain why Kronos ate his kids".'**

'You'd be surprised how many say that.' Hermes said.

'Yeah, for jobs on Olympus or working for a monster.' Athena rolled her eyes.

'**And why, Mr Jackson,' Brunner said, 'to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?'**

Everyone looked at Percy, waiting for an answer. He just shrugged.

'**Busted,' Grover muttered.**

'Never get caught!' Hermes yelled.

'**Shut up,' Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got in trouble, too. Mr Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears. **

**I thought about his question and shrugged. 'I don't know, sir.'**

'Do you ever know?' Thalia joked.

'**I see.' Mr Brunner looked disappointed. 'Well, half credit, Mr Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture or mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titans' stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs Dodds, would you lead us back outside?'**

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses. **

'Boys.' Artemis muttered and rolled her eyes.

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr Brunner said, 'Mr Jackson.'**

**I knew that was coming.**

Apollo looked at Percy. 'How did you know, young grasshopper?'

Percy wisely (for once) chose to ignore him.

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned towards Mr Brunner. 'Sir?'**

**Mr Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go – intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything. **

'They're older and yeah, they've seen pretty much everything.' Annabeth commented.

'**You must learn the answer to my question,' Mr Brunner told me.**

'**About the Titans?'**

'**About real life. And how your studies apply to it.'**

'**Oh.'**

'**What you learn from me,' he said, 'is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.'**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

'Try getting angry at Chiron now!' Thalis laughed.

'I can't. No one can.' Percy replied.

'That sounded creepy.' Nico said.

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armour and shouted: 'What ho!' and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped.**

'I wanna go to school now!' Hermes jumped up and down on his throne.

'Trust me – you don't.' Percy shook his head.

'It's fun!' Annabeth argued.

**But Mr Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact I had never made above a C— in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly. I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the **_**stele**_**, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

Zeus looked in thought. 'He was.'

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

**Nobody else seemed to notice.**

'Yes, you are very observant.' Athena told Percy.

**Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers.**

'Poor pigeons.' Demeter mumbled.

**Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

'She could be my daughter' Hermes mused.

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. **

'For once.' Thalia snorted.

**"Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."**

'No, you're not.' Athena told Percy bluntly.

'Thanks for that.' Percy replied.

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

All of Grover's friends laughed.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

Aprodite wiped a tear off of her cheek.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

'AWESOME!' The Stoll Brothers high fived each other.

'It did look pretty cool.' Percy agreed.

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

This time Grover's friends growled.

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

**I tried to stay cool.**

'Not going to work.' Annabeth sang tauntingly and grinned at Percy.

He grinned back. Aprodite beamed at them, she could feel their love radiating from them.

**The school counsellor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

Poseidon smiled, looking a little bit evil.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

'I didn't.' Percy mumbled.

'She has a crush on you.' Aphrodite told him.

'No she didn't.' Percy automatically denied, warily glancing at Annabeth.

'She did and she still does.' Aphrodite giggled. 'Unless you want to argue about love with the goddess of love?' She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

'No, thanks.' Percy said.

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

**"—the water—"**

**"—like it grabbed her—"**

Hermes gave Poseidon a high five. 'You have awesome powers, Uncle P. And awesome kids.'

**I didn't know what they were talking about.**

Thalia started laughed randomly.

**All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

'Again!' Annabeth sighed exasperatedly.

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay,**

Annabeth snorted, she looked seriously mad.

**promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"**

**I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

**That wasn't the right thing to say. **

'NEVER GUESS YOUR PUNISHMENT!' Hermes yelled at the demigods, looking a bit scary.

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."**

'Aww.' Aphrodite cooed.

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But—"**

**"You—will—stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

'You're so sweet.' Aphrodite looked at Percy like he was a baby who had just sneezed.

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

'Did she die on the spot?' Nico smiled crazily.

'Uhh, no.' Percy replied, looking confused.

'Why would he?' Artemis asked, curious.

'It's a _really _scary glare.' Nico said simply.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

'Magic' Apollo stated, nodding his head seriously.

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

'You believed that?' Annabeth questioned.

'Wait for it.' Percy said.

**I wasn't so sure.**

Annabeth looked at Percy and stuck her tongue out at him. He laughed at her.

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

'Oh no.' Poseidon groaned.

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

'What book is it?' Athena wondered.

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

'No, she's not.' Connor and Travis looked at each other knowingly.

**But apparently that wasn't the plan. I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman for us, the gallery was empty. Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

The gods all started grumbling amongst themselves.

Annabeth knew this was a monster but she didn't remember hearing anything about one before Percy got to camp apart from the Minotaur. That must be what this was, she thought. But she couldn't help the nagging feeling in the back of her head.

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing.**

'For once.' Thalia snorted.

**I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

'Good.' The Stolls and Hermes said.

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

'Keep thinking that.' Leo laughed.

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

Zeus smirked. He loved thunder.

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

Thalia laughed randomly once again.

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

The Stolls and Hermes looked over Percy appraisingly.

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

The Stolls and Hermes were nodding in approval at Percy.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

'Do you hear that often?' Piper questioned Percy.

'Yeah.' he said simply.

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shrivelled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

'A FURY?!' Annabeth yelled at Percy. 'YOUR FIRST MONSTER WAS A FURY AND YOU HAVE _NEVER _EVEN THOUGHT TO TELL ME THAT IN THE WHOLE TIME I'VE KNOWN YOU?!'

'Yep.' Percy simply said.

Jason, Piper and Leo looked scared for Percy, they'd seen Annabeth angry and knew it would result badly. However, she stared at Percy for a minute and then just started laughing loudly. Jason, Piper and Leo looked at Percy in awe. How did he do that?!

**Then things got even stranger.**

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air. Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes. My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword. She snarled, "Die, honey!" And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

'Yes. Completely natural.' Travis said mockingly.

'It isn't really to us but to children of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades it is actually natural.' Annabeth said.

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water.**

**Hisss!**

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

'Creepy' Piper muttered.

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

'No.' Connor said.

'Duh.' Travis rolled his eyes.

**I went back outside. It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

'Mrs. Kerr?' Leo asked.

**I said, "Who?"**

**"Our teacher. Duh!"**

'Silly me, I forgot.' Leo mumbled. Some of the people in the room looked at him oddly, he did realize he was talking to a book and that the person in the book was talking to Percy, not him, right?

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away. I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

'We have to teach Grover to lie.' Hermes said.

'Tried it, we couldn't do it.' Travis told him.

'If you and Connor can't do it, no one can.' Hermes said seriously.

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious." Thunder boomed overhead. I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

'That must've confused you, Prissy.' Clarisse laughed at Percy.

'Is 'Prissy' still the best you can come up with?' he asked her.

'Shut up!' she yelled at him.

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

'He'll lie.' Annabeth said.

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperon. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

'Now, he can lie!' Hermes laughed along with the Stoll brothers.

'I was so confused.' Percy grumbled.

'Aren't you always?' Thalia taunted him.

'Doesn't it get annoying that Thalia always calls you stupid?' Piper asked Percy.

'Nah, I put up with it because she only does it to cope with her own insecurities.' Percy grinned at Thalia.

'What insecurities?' Zeus asked, concerned. It looked scary for the King god to be a caring father all of a sudden.

'None, dad! He's kidding on!' She said before Zeus could do something embarrassing.

'Or am I?' Percy said mysteriously.

'Shut up.' she told him, trying to keep her face straight.

**A.N.- Hey, these chapters take longer to write than I realized, but I'll do them! :D Sorry if some of the characters mentioned at the start disappear then come back into the story, there's a lot of characters and it'll be harder than I thought to write them all in. :)**


	5. Three Old Ladies Knit The Socks Of Death

_**Hey, sorry if this changes a bit midway. I've decided to make it that the demigods got sent back in time so pretend that happened before they got to Olympus **____** The bus time travelled – that sounds good xD Anyway, sorry this took so long and that this AN is huge, but I hope you enjoy this! I'm going to try writing faster but between school, family, friends, tumblr's constant distractions and admining fandom pages on a certain social network site that I am unsure if I can mention, I have a busy life ;) So, again – ENJOY!**_

**I do not own Percy Jackson or any characters, they belong to Rick Riordan.**

Athena handed Artemis the book and she started to read:

**Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death**

'That doesn't sound good.' Leo mused.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly.**

**This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

'That must have messed with your head.' Travis looked at Percy sympathetically.

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

'They aren't wrong there.' Thalia joked.

'Nope.' Percy agreed, winking at her.

Jason gave Percy a calculating look, as though he were still trying to figure him out and whenever Jason came up with a conclusion about him, Percy did something that made it completely wrong.

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

'DON'T BELIEVE IT – ONCE THE MORTALS HAVE YOU, YOU'RE GONE FOREVER!' Apollo screamed dramatically.

Artemis shook her head irritably at her twin.

**Almost.**

'Phew.' Apollo looked genuinely relieved, leaving everyone in the room unsure if he was acting or not.

**But Grover couldn't fool me.**

**When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, and then claim she didn't exist.**

'I've never seen such a bad liar!' Hermes looked shocked that someone couldn't lie as well as him and his children.

**But I knew he was lying.**

'Obviously!' Connor exclaimed, then started muttering to himself about how he would have to teach Grover this vital skill.

**Something was going on. Something**_**had**___**happened at the museum.**

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

'You do have the worst nightmares.' Thalia looked at Percy with... was that sympathy?!

'Out of who?' Athena questioned curiously.

'Everyone I know.' Thalia replied bluntly.

Meanwhile, Annabeth had been looking at Percy worriedly. She knew whenever he had a nightmare, in the morning she could somehow always just tell, but she also knew that he played them down and never told anyone the full extent of it. He would tell you the basics and not the scary parts that left him so traumatised. Maybe now they were reading books set in his thoughts she would be able to see the full nightmares and just how bad they were.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows** **in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

Zeus and Poseidon slid down in their seats trying to avoid the disapproving looks most of the Olympians were giving them.

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from D's to F's.**

Athena tutted.

**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends.**

Athena tutted louder.

**I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

Athena tutted even louder.

'Athena!' Zeus yelled.

She gave her father a look of fake innocence.

'_Always a daddy's girl'_ Hera thought a little resentfully. Nobody understood why Hera had been mad about this child of Zeus, he hadn't cheated on her to have Athena.

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot.**

'GO PERCY!' Apollo cheered.

**I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

'What a surprise, not like it happens every year or anything.' Nico teased.

'You've been to one school!' Percy argued.

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

Hestia gave Percy a sympathetic look.

**I wanted to be with my mom**

'Awwww!' Aphrodite cooed.

**in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

Percy's jaw tightened and Poseidon gripped his trident angrily.

**And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view** **of the woods outside my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance,**

'Obviously you'd notice the river' Hephaestus spoke up. He gave Percy a crooked smile.

**the smell of pine trees.**

'Ha! Percy loves trees!' Connor randomly shouted.

Everyone looked at him oddly.

**I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend,** **even if he was a little strange.**

'I wish he was here to hear this' Thalia laughed.

**I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

Aphrodite cooed again. _Was she going to do this all the time?_

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for.**

Athena looked appalled.

**I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

'Good, it could help you survive.' Artemis commented.

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the**_**Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology**___**across my dorm room.**

Athena gasped loudly and stared at Percy in horror.

'Uh...sorry?' Percy said, looking a bit freaked out.

**Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon,**

'You can do it now though?' Athena asked sharply.

'Yes' Percy answered, remembering the time his dyslexia had made him confuse them. _Stupid dyslexia._

**or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

Some people in the room shivered.

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes.**_**I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.**_

''Sounds like a line from a movie' Travis said.

Everyone had to agree with him on that.

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before.**

Annabeth looked at Percy weirdly. 'Never?' She whispered to him disbelievingly.

'Uh, yeah, why?' He replied.

Annabeth took a moment to reply, she was too busy getting lost in those eyes. It was like being lost at sea. Eventually she shook herself.

'How do you learn then?'

'Class'

'That only teaches you the minimum'

'Yeah, the stuff everyone needs to know, the basics. What's the point in learning all the extra stuff if it's not even in the tests or exams?'

That was a good point, actually. She couldn't let him know he'd won an argument, however. So instead of admitting defeat she pulled him in for a kiss, hoping it'd keep him quiet or a while.

**Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

Aphrodite cooed so loudly it made Percy and Annabeth jump apart.

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said,**

_**"...**_ **worried about Percy, sir."**

**I froze.**

'Like a Percyicle' Percy laughed, remembering when he had had that thought.

Most of the people there were used to demigods having weird outbursts and Leo laughed, thinking that he and Percy had the same sense of humour.

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper,** **but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

Hermes nodded knowingly. He was ready to start evaluating Percy's skills (at least the ones that mattered most to Hermes: his own traits)

**I inched closer.**

A smile slowly spread across Hermes' face.

**"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the**_**school**_**! Now that we know for sure, and**_**they**___**know too—"**

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

'Still not mature enough' Katie joked.

Percy stuck his tongue out at her childishly.

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead line—**_**"**_

**"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

'Didn't last long' Percy mumbled.

**"Sir, he**_**saw**___**her... ."**

**"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

**"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again."**

Zeus started grumbling to himself about irresponsibility and trees.

**Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

**"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"**

Hermes' smiles faltered. _Keep it together._

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

'More book abuse!' Athena yelled accusingly.

'Calm down and have some cereal' Demeter said.

'No! I just need...need a book' A book appeared in Athena's hands. She hugged it tightly. 'Nice book...good book...'

Nobody had ever seen Athena like this before, it was scary.

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

'Uh oh' Hermes gulped.

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

'He's in full form?' Athena looked puzzled, but very much back to normal.

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

'Good' Hermes complimented.

**A few seconds later I heard a slow**_**clop-clop-clop,**___**like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, and then moved on.**

_Phew, _Hermes thought. _That was a close one._

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

'I wonder what happened' Piper looked at the Olympians for any clues and got none.

**"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."**

**"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

'Exams' Most of the demigods said with hatred.

Annabeth looked confused at all of her friends' hatred for exams, she loved them.

**"Don't remind me."**

'See, even Grover hates them!' Thalia said to Annabeth.

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

'At least he's making an effort at lying this time.' Travis and Connor nodded together.

**"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

'Ha! No.' Percy answered.

**I didn't answer.**

'Well at least you've answered now' Hazel smiled at Percy.

'Yeah, just took you five years' Frank laughed.

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

**"Just... tired."**

'LIE!' Connor yelled.

**I turned so he couldn't read my expression,**

'Not going to work, he can read emotions.' Annabeth supplied on impulse.

'I know. Everyone here knows that.' Percy told her.

**and started getting ready for bed.**

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**

'That's right, you imagined everything' Connor looked at Percy, trying to spook him. 'You're imagining this too!'

However, Percy wasn't listening. He was staring off into space, which happened to be in the direction of a certain Daughter of Athena.

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,**

'THREE HOURS!' All the demigods (minus Percy) and even some of the Gods yelled.

**my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."**

'That's not going to sit well with Percy' Annabeth said in a sing-song voice.

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

Aphrodite gasped. 'SHE LOVED YOU!' she yelled.

'No.' Percy replied adamantly.

'She seriously did. Don't question me on this subject.' She winked at Percy.

'She better not go anywhere near him' Annabeth huffed.

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

**"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

**My eyes stung.**

Ares smirked. _Wimp._

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

**"Right," I said, trembling.**

**"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"**

Some people in the room winced at that. It wasn't going to go down well.

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

**"Percy—"**

**But I was already gone.**

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were**_**rich**___**juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

'A nobody? From a family of nobodies?' Athena questioned.

'I didn't know then.' Percy defended himself.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

**"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**

'They sound...nice' Katie raised an eyebrow.

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

'What a coincidence' Annabeth joked.

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.**

**Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

'That's how you give a satyr a heart attack!' Grover bleated at Percy, scared at just the memory.

'Sorry.' Percy said, biting back his laughter.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much**_**did**___**you hear?"**

**"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

'Yes, what _is _it?' Athena asked the demigods, receiving no reply.

**He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers …"**

**"Grover—"**

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."**

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

'Yes, he is.' Hermes winced.

**His ears turned pink.**

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes,**

'Why is it in fancy script?' Athena questioned Dionysus.

'It's funny watching them try to read it' Dionysus smirked.

'Dionysus.' Zeus warned, narrowing his eyes.

**but I finally made out something like:**

_**Grover Underwood**_

_**Keeper**_

_**Half-Blood Hill**_

_**Long Island, New York**_

_**(800) 009-0009**_

**"What's Half—"**

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."**

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or...or if you need me."**

**"Why would I need you?"**

Percy mouthed an apology to Grover who grinned and shook his head.

**It came out harsher than I meant it to.**

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me.**

'Aww, that's so sweet' Aphrodite beamed at Percy.

'_Hmm, he seems to be different than other men, maybe not all of them are complete morons' _Artemis thought, then took one glance at her brother and retreated on it.

'_He seems like a perfectly nice young man with good priorities but he is Sea Spawn!' _ Athena was having an internal argument with herself.

**And here he was acting like he was the one who defended**_**me.**_

**"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**

**The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

'This doesn't sound good.' Athena said.

'It's not.' Percy replied.

Poseidon visibly paled.

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice**_**.**___**There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

'You saw the Fates.' Athena gasped.

Almost everyone in the room looked at him in awe over the fact he was still alive. Others were also in shock, all the time they'd known him and they'd never been told about this.

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

Poseidon gulped.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"**

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

**"Yeah.**

Poseidon cursed only loud enough for him to hear. He loved Percy, but by having him he had brought him a terrible fate.

**Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears.**

**I heard Grover catch his breath.**

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

'Go.' Annabeth urged.

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**

**"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

'NO YOU IDIOT! GO WITH HIM!' Annabeth yelled, then realized everyone was looking at her. 'I like books. And this one in particular, I'm sure.' She smoothly defended herself.

'And keeping your boyfriend alive' Thalia grinned.

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that**_**snip**___**across four lanes of traffic.**

Everyone once again looked at Percy to wonder how he was still alive.

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

Poseidon took a deep breath, trying to calm himself.

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

**"Grover?"**

**"Yeah?"**

**"What are you not telling me?"**

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

**"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**

**"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**

Grover mock-glared at Percy. Percy mimed dying and Grover stuck his tongue out at him.

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.**

'Observant' Athena commented.

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

**"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

**"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

Thalia nudged Grover and put an arm around him. They smiled widely at each other.

**"What last time?"**

**"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

**"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

**"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

**"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

'Yes' Zeus said, looking at Percy oddly.

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

'He probably was' Nico said.

'That chapter's finished.' Artemis said, putting a commemorative 'Hercules Busts Heads' between the pages of the book to keep their place. 'Who wants to read next?'

'I shall!' Apollo said dramatically.

**A.N. Done! These take a long time (for me anyway – the ultimate procrastinator) but I really want to continue on with this. Unfortunately, I have exams shortly so they'll be especially time consuming. However, after them it's SUMMER and that means nearly three months to write :D Oh yeah, I have Percabeth (my OTP) in this story but I was wondering if any of you would like any other ships in it too? Let me know **


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